


i want someone to tell me (what is the soul of a man)

by pandæmonium (curiocoyote)



Series: Souls!Verse [2]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012), His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Canon-Typical Violence, Daemons, Gen, Mentions of Violence, Off-screen Deaths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-31
Updated: 2017-03-31
Packaged: 2018-10-13 10:30:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10511940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/curiocoyote/pseuds/pand%C3%A6monium
Summary: The first time Bellona settles, it's nothing remarkable.The second time Bellona settles, it feels like the world tilts on its axis and remains there.





	

**Author's Note:**

> A short little piece about Oliver's daemon, Bellona, settling and resettling. She first settled as a black palm cockatoo, and resettled as a black jaguar.
> 
> As explained on the His Dark Materials wiki,  
> "Dæmons are the external physical manifestation of a person's 'inner-self' that takes the form of an animal. Dæmons have human intelligence, are capable of human speech—regardless of the form they take—and usually behave as though they are independent of their humans. Pre-pubescent children's dæmons can change form voluntarily, almost instantaneously, to become any creature, real or imaginary. During their adolescence a person's dæmon undergoes "settling", an event in which that person's dæmon permanently and involuntarily assumes the form of the animal which the person most resembles in character."

The first time Bellona settles, it's nothing remarkable.

Oliver was twelve years old at the time, already regularly wreaking havoc with Tommy and Desi. Their bad habits had started early, dating the most popular girls at school and occasionally sneaking alcohol from the expansive Queen mansion pantry, although Raisa usually caught them in the act and sent them back upstairs or outside with a scolding that they both knew she didn't really mean.

It was a warm summer day, and he, Tommy, Thea, and his parents were out back by the huge blue pool. Desi had already settled as a flame-orange dhole, and she ran around the edge of the pool barking gleefully as the boys roughhoused in the water, splashing everywhere. Bellona was delighting in shifting between all of the aquatic forms she could, clearly showing off. First she was a sea lion, then an otter, then a tiger shark and then a series of iridescent tropical fish.

When they finally climbed out of the water for lunch, toweling off and comparing pruned fingers and toes, Bellona propelled herself out of the water in dolphin form to shift in midair, twisting and shrinking and landing on Oliver's bare, damp shoulder as a large black cockatoo, shaking her still-wet feathers.

"Ow, Bell, those claws hurt!" Oliver laughed, poking at his dæmon. "Change into something else."

Bellona clacked her beak at him impudently, but still closed her eyes to concentrate on shifting.

Nothing happened.

"Bell?" Oliver asked, holding a hand up to his shoulder so she could step onto it. She ruffled her feathers and tried once again to change forms, reaching for the familiar feel of malleability that she could manipulate into fur or scales in the blink of an eye.

It didn't come.

"Oh," she said, looking up at Oliver with mild surprise. "I'm stuck."

"Dude, a bird?" Tommy said, leaning over with mild interest. "Lame."

Oliver stuck his tongue out at Tommy. Bellona squawked indignantly at the offense to her new form and flapped up into the air, showing off her large black wings.

"Birdbrain." Desi said at Tommy's feet, grinning up at the cockatoo.

"Dholeface!" Bellona shot back, flustered.

There was a beat or two of silence before all four broke out in helpless laughter, the towels slipping from the boys' shoulders and their daemons shrieking with mirth.

 

* * *

 

 

The second time Bellona settles, it feels like the world tilts on its axis and remains there.

Well, to be more accurate, the world had been tilting for a while. Bellona resettling was simply the final indicator that their world- and they themselves- had been changed irrevocably.

It was night. He and Shado and Slade were sitting around a fire, all of them exhausted and still reeling from the day's events.

Fyers was dead. Yao Fei was dead. His men were dead.

Oliver's mind was still full of images from the chaos- Yao Fei's body falling limply to the floor, the feel of the bow in his hands as he aimed the arrow straight at Fyers, the heat and the noise of the explosion, the stench of charred flesh.

Shado's damon was a small black and orange salamander that was curled up in the hollow between her neck and her shoulder as she lay on her side, propped up on one elbow, staring blankly into the fire. Oliver felt like he should offer some words of comfort about Yao Fei, but he wasn't sure what he could say. Whenever he tried to think of something, his mind filled with the sound of the gunshot that killed Yao Fei and the image of his tapir daemon exploding violently into a roiling cloud of golden Dust. They'd all washed earlier, but Oliver could still feel the tiny particles of what was once human souls on his skin, not only from Shado's father but from the soldiers as well.

Slade was sitting on the opposite side of the fire from Shado, perched on some old metal trunk that came from the plane. Halkyone sat on one of his knees, and one hand absently stroked her feathers as the two whispered to each other quietly, often falling into long periods of silence before resuming their private conversation. Slade didn't seem bothered by the golden eagle's talons digging into his leg to maintain her balance- but then again, Slade didn't seem bothered by much, beyond his near-constant bad mood. But Oliver had been around the man for long enough to know that the day's events and the loss of Yao Fei had taken their toll, even if he'd never admit it.

Oliver was perfectly willing to admit that he was affected- by Yao Fei's death, the loss of a mentor and guardian; by his actions today, his taking of a life, even the life of a man as twisted and dark as Fyers', even the life of a man who killed so many in his pursuit of power and wealth.

Oliver was a killer now.

He sighed as he stared absently into the fire, his fingers stroking lightly over Bellona's black feathers, which shimmered with light from the dancing flames.

She clacked her beak softly and suddenly stretched her large wings, flapping them a few times to migrate from Oliver's knee to the dirt in front of the fire. She shook herself, ruffling her feathers. Slade and Shado were watching the bird curiously, and Oliver was simply confused. He leaned forward, starting to reach out a hand towards his daemon, when something began to happen.

The edges of Bellona's black feathers began to dissolve, shining with more than just firelight, disintegrating into an all-too-familiar sight.

Oliver had seen many men's daemons collapse into clouds of shimmering golden Dust, but never had he seen someone's daemon make the change so slowly. Not to mention, he wasn't dead.

Slade and Shado were both sitting bolt upright now, their hands unconsciously shielding their daemons from the terrifying, strange thing happening in their midst. Oliver was crouching, hands hovering in front of the swirling mass of Dust, afraid to do anything. He could still feel Bellona's presence- the only thing preventing him from completely panicking.

The cloud started to grow denser, darker, expanding and shifting. Bit of solid material seemed to take shape, flashes of darkness here and there. Slowly, tendrils of Dust began to take on structure, connecting with other shapes, expanding and darkening.

When the final motes of golden Dust absorbed into eyes of the same color, Bellona stood before Oliver once again, and he let out a dry sob of relief. But she wasn't the same.

Gone were the feathers, replaced by short, sleek fur of the same midnight hue. Gone were the wings, the beak, the scaled legs. Gone was everything familiar but the color black and the sense of _Bellona_.

"Damn," Slade observed succinctly from where he'd been gaping at the enormous jaguar. "That was... something. At least she chose something useful this time."

Oliver let out a rusty chuckle at the comment, its familiar abrasive bluntness relaxing him enough to reach out a trembling hand and stroke his fingers down Bellona's long spine. She purred and pressed her head into his chest, almost tipping him backwards from his crouch. He laughed again, his heart and nerves calming with the physical contact.

It was still his Bellona. They were both different than they had been what seemed like decades ago on the Queen's Gambit, of course, but just because this change was reflected in Bellona's new shape didn't mean that she had left him, or ever would. They'd survived this far, and they'd keep enduring, until they could make it back to their family. Back to their city. Back home.


End file.
